Vokes’s family lived in Ealing, a few miles down the road from the station in Acton where he’d been based for the past ten years. By the time Stegs had meandered his way down there, it was one o’clock and time to eat. Hungry, tired and still vaguely hung over, he had a rank taste of old beer in his mouth and the best way to get rid of it was to sup a bit of hair of the dog. The pub beckoned.
He parked on a backstreet near Ealing Common and made his way down on to the Broadway, keeping an eye out for a decent boozer as he strolled along the crowded shopping street. He and Vokes had never really drunk round here so he didn’t know the watering holes and wanted to make sure he found a good one. Stegs was a traditionalist where pubs were concerned. He didn’t want a wine bar serving tapas or somewhere where they only flogged bottled beer at £2.50 a pop. He wanted carpets with fag burns on them, the smell of beer and smoke; the noise of loud, rasping, unhealthy laughter. Pork scratchings; a dartboard; food with big chips on the side; barmen who look like barmen, not fucking students.
He eventually found a place near Ealing Broadway Tube that at least had some of what he was looking for. It was a bit big, and there were a few too many businessmen and estate agent types, but they did do steak and kidney pie and chips and they had a good variety of beers on tap. He asked the barman, who unfortunately did look like a student, whether the chips were chunky or those little thin ones like you got in McDonald’s. The barman, who said he was new, had to go and check with the kitchen, and when he came back he said that they did bakers’ chips, which were apparently in between.
‘That’s not a bad marketing idea,’ said Stegs, and ordered a pint of Stella and steak and kidney pie with bakers’ chips, before taking a seat at the bar.
The grub, when it came, was good and he finished the lot. There are very few men in the world who can have just one pint and leave it at that, and in Stegs’s opinion those who can have something wrong with them. He wasn’t going to be driving for an hour or two so he ordered another Stella and drank it swiftly with two smokes. That was the point when he should have stopped – he could usually last just about on two – but the knowledge that stopping meant heading round to Gill’s place made him think that perhaps one more would be in order.
He shouted for another pint, paid for it, then made his way to the toilets, taking the drink with him. They were clean enough for pub bogs, but they still had that stale, pissy smell you always get in such places, and the sight of a cockroach floundering on its back in a pool of water by the sinks did little to add to the ambience. There was no-one else in there so he went to the nearest cubicle, stepped inside and locked the door. He then fished a small, transparent packet filled with white powder from the inside of his jacket, opened it, and chucked half of its contents into the new pint. The beer fizzed up angrily, then settled again as the speed began to dissolve, the chunkier bits sinking towards the bottom. Stegs didn’t consider himself an addict by any means, but more and more these days he needed the speed as a pick-me-up for when he was feeling knackered or hung over – or in this case both. He’d been introduced to it by Pete the gun dealer, had liked it (particularly the fact that it was cheap) and, given his excellent and varied contacts within the criminal classes, had never had a problem getting hold of it. He never took it more than two or three times a week though, and considered his usage firmly under control.
With one hand, he flipped himself out of his jeans and opened fire directly into the bowl, while using the other hand to guzzle the drug-fuelled lager in a classic example of recycling. One minute later he’d given his dick and the half-full glass a good shake, and was feeling better already. He went back out, his heart thumping and teeth grinding, a grin already erupting on his face, knowing that now he was ready for anything. A vision of Vokes marched unwelcome into his mind, and he pushed it aside with a survivor’s laugh that had a group of businessmen standing near the door to the gents giving him the resigned, moderately contemptuous look that so many Londoners aim at the mentally unstable. Stegs ignored them.
His seat at the bar had been taken by a young woman with a pudgy face and a big arse who was sitting talking to a spotty teenager in a cheap suit. The teenager was making a pretty lame attempt to appear interested in what the girl was saying, but he perked up noticeably when she put a flabby arm on his and leant forward, giggling, to tell him something. Stegs imagined the two of them naked and on the job, and it made him feel a bit sick, so he turned away and found some space by a pillar in the middle of the floor. He leant against it and took another huge swig of his pint, wondering whether he had time for just one more.
At that moment, his private mobile rang. He instantly recognized the tone: Mission Impossible. This was the phone used by family, friends, work and informants who knew his real identity. He had another purely for undercover work. The ringtone on that one was The Magnificent Seven.
He removed it from the pocket of his jacket and checked the number, not immediately recognizing it. ‘Hello,’ he said, putting it to his ear. The bar was crowded now with office workers on their lunch-break, and he had to speak up.
‘All right, Stegsy?’
Only one man called Stegs ‘Stegsy’, and that was Trevor Murk, a petty criminal and informant whose activities matched his name, and who occasionally provided him with tidbits of information about the activities of small-time crims operating out of his Barnet locale. Stegs hadn’t heard from Murk for a while, which was why he hadn’t recognized the number.
‘Hello, Trevor. What can I do for you today?’
‘I think it’s more a matter of what I can do for you, me old mate. Got a little bit of info that might be of great use. Great use indeed.’
Murk spoke like Michael Caine did in Get Carter. Loud enough to stop a conversation, yet taking care to enunciate every word individually with an air of cheery cockney menace. It was all an act, though. He’d actually been brought up in St Albans.
‘Oh yeah?’ said Stegs, not sure whether it was worth mentioning that he was suspended. ‘What’s that, then?’
‘Behave, sweetboy. Not over the blower. This sort of thing requires some alcoholic lubrication. Are you in the boozer at the moment?’
‘I am, but nowhere local. I’m in Ealing.’
‘What the fuck are you doing there?’ asked Murk in a tone that suggested he might as well have been in Kathmandu.
‘I’m having a drink,’ said Stegs, who was already beginning to get tired of this conversation. Murk wasn’t bad company as informants go, but he did rate himself highly and could therefore become severely irritating on occasion.
‘Well, I can give it to someone else, Stegsy, but I reckon you’ll regret it if I do. This’ll be a nice little collar, and I reckon you’ll have a laugh doing it as well.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Exactly what I said. I’ll tell you more if we meet up. And I’m going to need a nice little drink for my troubles.’
In spite of himself, Stegs was intrigued. He took another gulp from his pint, leaving nothing but a powdery mouthful in the bottom. He could hear his heart pounding but knew it was the gear. ‘There’ll be no money until I hear what you’ve got to say, all right?’
‘Fair do’s, but you’ll like it, I promise you that.’
‘We’ll see. I can meet you tomorrow lunchtime. Soon enough.’
‘That’ll do. Usual place?’
‘I’ll be there at one o’clock.’
‘Are you pissed?’
‘Eh?’
‘You sound a bit pissed down there. How many have you had?’
‘What are you? My fucking mother? I’m fine. See you tomorrow.’
He hung up, hoping he didn’t sound too inebriated. He’d been thinking about having another, but decided he’d better knock it on the head for now.
He didn’t know why he’d agreed to meet up with Murk. Even if it was an easy collar, in the end it was none of his business now that he was suspended, his future in the Force looking shaky to say the
least. No-one likes a copper involved in controversy, least of all the politically sensitive Brass. But regardless of all that, that’s what Stegs Jenner still was. A copper. And a copper likes getting collars. Plus, it would give him something to do tomorrow. If Murk wasn’t being too cocky, it might even be quite a good afternoon.
He finished the last bit of his drink and put the glass on a shelf on the pillar he’d been leaning against, then headed out the door, trying to compose a few fitting sentences of commiseration for the recently bereaved widow.
It took Stegs close to half an hour to find the Vokerman household. He’d only ever been there once before, and this time had forgotten to bring the address or the directions with him. Or the flowers, come to that. He knew the number, and the rough location, but couldn’t think of the street name, so he’d had to tramp around the whole area until he’d come across it, quite by chance. A quiet residential road made up of bland but spacious 1940s semis in view of the Thames Valley University campus.
He walked along until he came to the house where his friend had lived for more than ten years. He stopped for a moment at the gate, recognizing the familiar yellow paint, then steadied himself before walking the three yards through the tiny but well-kept front garden up to the front door. A bunch of flowers wrapped in black paper had been placed in the porch. He knocked hard on the door.
A few seconds later he heard footsteps, and then it opened to reveal a tall, bespectacled gentleman with a kindly smile, a dog collar and not much hair. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘Can I help you?’
Stegs’s heart banged hard in his chest and he had to fight back a sudden urge to shriek loudly. ‘Yes,’ he said, as sombrely as possible. ‘I’m here to see Mrs Vokerman. I worked very closely with her husband.’
The vicar nodded slowly and wisely. Stegs doubted if he was more than a couple of years older than him, but he had the demeanour of a fifty-year-old. It probably went with the territory. He opened the door wider. ‘Please come in.’
‘My son.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘My son. Sorry, I thought you were going to say “my son”. You know, “Please come in, my son.”’
‘I think that’s Catholics, Mr . . . ?’
‘Jenner. Mark Jenner.’ He had to think about that last one.
‘Come in, Mark. I am sure it’ll be a comfort for Gill to see you.’ He looked like he meant it too. Whatever you say about these Christians, they do try hard.
Stegs followed him through the hall and into the lounge, cursing himself for not being able to keep his mouth shut. Gill was in there, sitting in an armchair sipping a cup of tea. An older lady, with her grey hair tied into two huge buns like giant headphones round each ear, held onto Gill’s arm. She also had a cup of tea. On the wall was a large framed photo of Vokes, Gill and the two kids, all looking very happy as they smiled into the camera. Other photos of his former colleague and family adorned the walls and mantelpieces of the room. It was half past two. This time the previous afternoon the man of the house had been alive and well. Stegs almost burst into tears. Thank God he hadn’t had that fourth pint.
‘Hello, Gill,’ he said, stopping enough distance away from her so she wouldn’t smell the booze and fags. ‘I came round to say how sorry I am about your loss. He was a good man.’
‘Thank you, Mark,’ she said quietly, fixing him with a moderately disapproving look.
Stegs couldn’t help wondering what Vokes had ever seen in her. She was a very plain woman to look at and did nothing to try to minimize it. She wore no make-up, dressed very conservatively and had a shrewish personality. Vokes wouldn’t have won any good looks contests (he had a beard for a start), but he could have done a lot better than this.
‘Please take a seat. This is my mother.’
The mother nodded menacingly.
The vicar plonked himself next to the woman Stegs would only ever know as Mother, while he himself took a seat at the other end of the room, furthest away from Gill.
‘The police came round this morning,’ Gill said wearily, staring up towards the ceiling. ‘They talked for a long time but were unable to give me any details of how Paul died. Were you there?’
They all looked at him. The vicar was still smiling, or maybe that was just his normal expression. Stegs suddenly had a terrible desire to masturbate, to rush out of this room, lock himself in the toilet and pull one off at the wrist. It was a reaction he often got to speed, he wasn’t sure why. It was ironic, really, because amphetamines made it very difficult to get a hard-on, something that at that moment was proving quite useful. A tentpeg stiffy in a room like this would have been a disaster.
For a couple of seconds he didn’t answer as his thoughts shot off here and there, so she repeated the question.
‘Are you finding it difficult to talk about what happened, Mark?’ asked the vicar.
‘No, I’m fine. Really.’ He turned to Gill, putting on his most earnest expression. ‘I’m not allowed to make any comment about it either, I’m afraid, Gill,’ he said, trying to stop his teeth grinding. ‘All I can say is that I was part of the same operation, and that his death would have been very quick. Very quick indeed.’
The mother gasped. ‘The name of the Lord is a strong tower the righteous run into and are safe,’ she said stiffly. Whatever that was meant to mean.
The vicar nodded slowly. ‘These are very trying times,’ he said, which was a bit of a statement of the obvious. ‘We must all be strong.’
‘How are the children taking it?’ asked Stegs, unable to think of anything else to say.
‘Jacob is very upset, as you can imagine. Honey’s still too young to understand.’
‘Where are they at the moment?’
‘My dad’s looking after them.’
‘Kids are very resilient. Very, very resilient. They can get through this sort of thing. Yup, definitely. No problem.’
There was a long silence. Stegs felt himself sweating. The room was stifling.
‘I am the living bread which came down from heaven,’ said Mother. ‘If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.’
No thanks, thought Stegs, with an inner shudder.
‘Amen,’ said Gill quietly, and he saw tears form in her eyes.
He had to get out of there, he couldn’t handle it. There was a pressure building in his head that for some reason seemed far more intense than any of the situations he’d found himself in during his undercover activities. With the exception of Frank Rentners and the steam iron, of course.
‘You must be traumatized yourself, Mark,’ said the vicar gently. ‘You’ve lost a friend.’
‘We’ve all lost a friend,’ said Gill, and this time the floodgates opened. Mother squeezed her arm tightly before leaning over and giving her another encouraging quote from the Bible.
Stegs and the vicar exchanged sympathetic looks. ‘I’m sure I’ll be OK,’ he said.
‘These are trying times,’ the vicar repeated, ‘but with the help of the Lord we will get through them. Are you a Christian, Mark?’
‘I like to keep an open mind,’ said Stegs, thinking that this would be the easiest answer. It was yes, no and maybe all rolled into one, and hopefully strangled any further debate on the issue.
‘Mark’s a biblical name. Mark was, as I’m sure you know, one of Jesus’s apostles.’
‘My real name’s Ken,’ said Stegs, who always liked to lie when he’d had a few.
‘Ah, Ken,’ mused the vicar wisely. ‘It’s a name I always associate with hard work.’
‘My dad was a dustman.’
‘Tell me about Paul,’ said the vicar breezily, changing the subject. ‘I knew him from the congregation at the church, and from my work in the parish, but it would be nice to hear something from one of his colleagues.’
Stegs was beginning to go off the vicar. That idiot grin just didn’t want to leave his face, like it was squatting there waiting for the bailiffs, defying court order after court order. Perhaps he
was retarded.
Stegs saw that Gill had brought herself back under control now, and she and Mother were also waiting for him to say something. He wished he hadn’t had that speed. It was making sitting still next to impossible. ‘He was a lovely guy,’ he blurted out. ‘Absolutely lovely. Hard-working, hard-playing, hard-everything . . . a real team player. Great to be around, and very conscientious. Always on the look-out for his mates. A real copper’s copper. I loved that bloke, I really did.’ He shook his head to signify his sense of loss but did it a little bit too vigorously and saw a bead of sweat fly off onto the carpet.
They all stared at it for a moment, then at him, no-one saying anything, and he thought that, no, this was worse than any undercover op. Even Rentners. His left leg was going up and down like the clappers.
‘Are you all right, Mark?’ asked Gill.
He nodded, just as vigorously. ‘I’m fine, honestly. Just a bit shocked, that’s all. The whole thing’s taken it out of me. Do you mind if I go to the toilet?’
‘Of course not. You remember where it is, don’t you?’
He stood up. ‘Yeah, I do. Straight down the hall, through the kitchen, and right to the end.’
He exited quickly, wiping his brow as soon as he was out of the lounge door. He walked down the hall, through the kitchen and into the room where they kept the washing machine and the tumble-drier. This part of the house was the extension, tacked on a couple of years back. A door opposite him led to the toilet. There was also a door to his right, and this was the one that Stegs opened before stepping into Vokes’s study. It was small, but still getting on for twice the size of Stegs’s, and was a lot more orderly. Photos adorned the walls: of family, of Vokes in uniform, on graduation day, all that sort of stuff. At the end of the room facing the window were his desk and PC.
The Crime Trade Page 10
